A five-step course for people in Australia who have never played an online PC game

The five steps, in order

1. What a free online PC game actually is — what "free to play" covers, what a game client is, and what a store page is telling you.
2. Whether your computer can run it — finding your operating system, processor, memory, graphics and free disk space, and comparing them to stated requirements.
3. Accounts, email confirmation and what you agree to — why a game wants an email address, how a confirmation link works, and how to spot a fake one.
4. Classification, spending and younger players — Australian classification, in-game purchases, randomised items, and the settings households use.
5. Your first session, and what comes after it — what the first load looks like, how to stop, and how to keep things tidy over months.

Who this course is for, and who it is not for

It is written for an adult in Australia with a laptop or desktop, who has heard a particular game is free and has no idea what happens between that sentence and actually playing. You might be setting it up for yourself, or you might be the person in the house who gets asked to make things work. Either way, nothing here assumes you have done it before.

It is not for people who build their own computers or compare frame rates, and it is not a ranking of which game is best — that depends on what you like, which no web page can know. It is also not technical support. If the computer is already misbehaving, that is a separate problem and a game is not the thing to try next.

What you will be able to do after each step

Step 1 leaves you able to separate three things a store page mixes together: the price of the game, the price of things inside it, and the cost of hardware to run it. Step 2 leaves you able to read your own system information and compare five numbers against a publisher's requirements. Step 3 leaves you able to register, confirm an email address, and tell a real confirmation from a fake. Step 4 leaves you able to look up a classification and set a spending limit you chose in advance. Step 5 leaves you able to finish a first session calmly, or uninstall cleanly and close the account.

The one checklist to do before anything else

Five minutes of preparation before Step 1 saves most of the frustration. None of it installs anything.

1. Write down which operating system this computer runs — macOS, Windows or a Linux distribution — with its version number.
2. Confirm you can sign in to the email account you intend to use, on this computer, right now.
3. Write down the free space on the main drive, in gigabytes.
4. Decide the most you would spend inside a game in a month, in Australian dollars, even if the answer is zero.
5. Note whose user account you will be using, if the computer is shared.

Every checklist is gathered on one page if you would rather print them and work on paper.

A worked example running through the course

The same hypothetical household appears in each step. It is an invention written to illustrate the steps — not a real family, not a reader, and not a report of anyone's results. Two adults share a five-year-old Windows laptop in a flat in suburban Brisbane; one wants to try a free online shooter a workmate mentioned. In Step 2 they find the laptop's graphics are built into the processor rather than a separate card, which changes what to expect. In Step 4 they work out what to do about a 14-year-old who visits on weekends. The example shows the shape of the decisions, not what you should decide.

What you can do without spending anything

Checking your own hardware is free and takes a quarter of an hour. Reading a publisher's requirements and terms is free. Searching the national classification database is free. Registering with a game distributed at no charge is free. Setting your own spending limit before you start is free, and is the most useful thing in this course. What is not free is the hardware, the power, the internet connection and anything a game sells once you are inside it, which is Step 4's subject.

Where Enlisted appears in the course, and why

Enlisted is a game published online; according to the network that runs our affiliate link it is a new game set in the atmosphere of the Second World War, and its sign-up is registration, email confirmation and a first launch. That is exactly the sequence Steps 3 and 5 describe in general terms, which is why it is the example used. Anything else about it — contents, requirements, what it costs inside — comes from the publisher's own site, not from us.

It appears for a second reason, stated plainly: links to it are paid affiliate links and they fund this site. The course does not claim it is better than anything else, and does not rank it.

Visit the Enlisted website

Paid affiliate link. Evropastar s.r.o. may earn a commission if you register through it. Nothing costs you more, and the course reads the same if you ignore it.

Official Australian sources used in the steps

Where a step touches something a public body publishes guidance on, it links to that body instead of paraphrasing. The Australian Cyber Security Centre publishes advice on securing accounts and devices. Scamwatch publishes information about current scams. The eSafety Commissioner covers online safety, including gaming and young people. The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner oversees privacy law, and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission administers consumer law. The Australian Classification Board classifies games and keeps a searchable database.

How the course is written and kept current

It is written by the Evropastar s.r.o. editorial team. There are no named instructors, no enrolment and no certificate, because none would mean anything. Each step was drafted from public documentation: operating system help pages for the hardware checks, the relevant Australian regulator for anything legal, and a publisher's own site for anything about a specific game. Claims we could not source were left out. The whole course is reviewed at least twice a year, and the review date sits in the footer of every page. About sets out the method, including the commercial relationship behind the links.

Short questions people ask first

Do I need an account on this site?

No, and there is none to make. Calm Trait has no sign-up and no newsletter, and the checklists do not remember ticks because nothing is stored in your browser.

Does the course have to be done in order?

Each step assumes the one before it, but nothing stops you reading Step 4 first if spending is the only part you care about.

Is this advice about what to buy?

No. It explains how to check things and what the words mean. Deciding not to install anything is a perfectly ordinary result.